In article , GMC writes:

It looks like we are on the road to some deflation in the numbers.

Perhaps. There are lots of factors influencing the numbers right now. For
example, a new Tech Q&A pool was put in place July 15, and since then the
number of new Techs has plummeted.

AE4FA has posted numbers gleaned from his research into the FCC
database concerning renewals of the Technician class (no code variety)
and has found that almost 97% of them are not renewing.

I question his methods.

There is only
a small data window to draw from however, as the first people who held
this license class are only starting to reach the end of the grace
periods. He had a way to filter out licensees who had upgraded.

Before I'd accept such a low renewal rate, I'd like to see how the data was
processed. There are all sorts of procedural pitfalls in trying to figure out
renewal rates. For example, people change their names and addresses frequently,
making tracking difficult. The 1994 changes to the vanity callsign rules
resulted in a lot of Techs getting vanity calls - which carry with them a
renewal.

I think
there was 8 months of data when the finding were posted.

And how many were issued in that time?

This could be
why we are about 4,000 licensees down from the peak you mentioned.

Perhaps. OTOH, look at how many Techs are renewed in a given year, then figure
what 10% of the current Tech-Tech Plus population is. You'll get a much higher
renewal rate than 3%

73 de Jim, N2EY